Absorbent articles, particularly disposable absorbent articles, have undergone an evolution since they first became commercially available. Materials and features made available by new technologies have improved the function and fit of absorbent articles. Before new designs and features become available on commercial products, substantial research and development efforts are necessary to ensure that the products will perform as expected. Development efforts typically include “bench top” laboratory tests to measure features and performance such as absorbency, strength, flexibility or breathability. While reliable and useful, the bench top tests are not capable of fully accounting for the conditions experienced during normal use of absorbent articles. Therefore, absorbent articles are frequently tested through use by consumers who later provide feedback.
While the results are extremely useful, consumer use testing can be costly and time consuming. In order to bridge the gap between bench top test methods and consumer use tests, product testing with life-like models may be used to test the design and performance of absorbent articles. Life-like models such as mannequins may be used to test absorbent articles under more realistic conditions without the time and the cost incurred for consumer testing.
As such, mannequin systems have been developed specifically for testing absorbent articles. While such systems are useful for conducting performance testing, current mannequin surface properties do not mimic human skin properties. Therefore, more skin-like mannequin surface properties are needed to improve the correlation between mannequin testing and in vivo performance.